The Truce

The Truce

The Truce

By:

Mario Benedetti, trans. from the Spanish by Harry Morales

Martín Santomé is a 49-year-old worn out accountant close to retirement, a widower living with his three grown children. A casual bed fellow once described him as looking like a clerk even when he’s making love. He is so unimaginative that, of all the occupations in the world, what he would choose if he’d be something other than an accountant, is to be a waiter. As he looks back on the 20 years since his wife’s death, he realizes that he hasn’t been happy, but he did right by his children. He was spared “the unyielding look that is reserved for heartless fathers.”